“Only to have touched it up, and made it look pretty for ’em.”
“Never mind!” said Dallas, through his teeth. “We’ll make it to look pretty for them when we find them.”
“So we will, my son,” cried the Cornishman, and as he gathered chips and branches together he kept on indulging in a hearty laugh at the prospect of the encounter; and as the two young adventurers glanced at the man’s tremendous arms, they had sundry thoughts about what would happen to the thieves.
The Cornishman was right; they were much more handy over making the second raft, and worked so hard that by the end of the following day a new and stronger one was made and loaded ready for the next morning’s start.
But this time a watch was kept, one of the party sitting on board until half the night had passed, when he was relieved by another; and as the sun rose, breakfast was over, and they cast off the rope from the pine-stump which had formed the mooring-post.
The morning was glorious, and the sun lit up the snow-covered mountains, making the scene that of a veritable land of gold. A light breeze, too, was blowing in their favour, so that their clumsy craft was wafted down the lake, which here and there assumed the aspect of a wide river of the bluest and purest water, the keen, elastic air sending a thrill of health and strength through them, and it seemed as if the tales they had heard of the perils they were to encounter were merely bugbears, for nothing could have been pleasanter than their passage.
“Let’s see,” said Dallas, who was well provided with map and plan; “when we get to the bottom of this lake there are some narrows and rapids to pass along.”
“So we heard,” said the Cornishman. “Well, so much the better. We shall go the faster. I suppose they’re not Falls of Ni-agger-ray.—I say, can you gents swim?”
“Pretty well,” was the reply. “Can you?”
The big fellow scratched his head and screwed up his face into a queer smile.